Creating Monsters

Countdown to fall semester: seven days

SEVEN DAAAAAAAYS

Ahem.

I put together a message list last night via Facebook so that all six of us in the Raiding Party (also known as the "Knot Lot" or "Wedding Posse") can communicate back and forth in private about putting together plans, travel arrangements and the like as we lead up to the wedding.

This may have been a mistake. It seems that I have created a monster. A five-headed dragon hell-bent on somehow destroying me (metaphorically speaking) in the days leading up to my wedding.

Some of the best quotes thus far (names withheld, of course):

1. "What day do we crush your entire being with alcohol?"

2. "I hate few things in this world as much as I hate stretch humvees, so let's get one of those. I will christen it with a splash of red paint to signify its stateside status as a barbwire tattoo magnet, while everywhere else in the world serves as a principle target. I have no direct knowledge of Omaha's seedy underworld, but I will research. I see here the experience of my misspent youth shall again pay its generous dividends."
    "I'm in." 
    "Clearly, you are King of the Misfits. LEAD US."
    "FOLLOW ME TO VICTORY!"
    "Is that what they're calling jail cells now?"

3.  "I was going to say something along the lines of survival is good, but survival with all limbs, extremeties, and bodily organs functioning is better."
     "I only need one hand, most of my legs, and all of my vital organs."

4. "I've always wanted to dress you like a Hobbit" and "C'mon, you've got the feet for it..."


...this group has been in existence for less than twenty-four hours, folks. Can anyone imagine the ideas that will be brought forth over the course of the next nine months?

Misfit pirates, ahoy. 

I am totally satisfied and put at ease by this, honestly. These people are my friends and family, and people I love and trust. They're also going to do everything they can to make the experience fun and awesome. I'm not exactly down for any sort of traditional "bachelor party" type of thing, though; I've never been that sort of person and have never wanted one, really. I told Daisy to do whatever she wants for her bachelorette party, if she has one, but for me? Eh. I'll just be happy to have everyone together and in one place. We could go crazy through the streets of Omaha, or we could sit in a quiet bar or restaurant and be happy and more laid back. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. What's important is being around my friends and loved ones -- who, in this case, are one and the same.

I created yet another monster tonight as well -- and that monster is me.


I have, every week, a few errands I need to take care of, even when not much is going on. I generally keep a to-do list for myself. Today, for example, that to-do list was to refill the water bottle in my fridge, take a shower and run the load of laundry consisting of my grass-mowing clothes and shoes, recreate and rewrite my English 101 syllabus and first unit lesson plan (something I'll write more about in a bit), go out grocery shopping, and make waffles for Daisy for when she arrives in about 36 hours. I accomplished all of these things, but I created a monster of myself along the way. And I'll tell you how.

As you folks probably know -- at least those of you who go to Walmart on a regular basis -- Walmart continually rotates their clothing stock. I've actually had one Walmart or another in my life since the first one was built in Morgantown in the early '90s while I was growing up there, and I've watched their clothing selection, which was originally quite limited and consisting of mainly blue jeans, underwear/socks, and cheap workshirts, blossom into massive clothing centers of sorts over the past fifteen years or so, places where you can find damn near anything you want at a pretty reasonable price. It used to be shameful to say that you got most of your clothing from Walmart. Now it's really not anymore. And, really, anytime I need something fairly basic, whether that's the aforementioned socks, underwear, or jeans or something else, Walmart is where I go. I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I'm certainly not ashamed of it. My favorite pants, and I own several pairs of them, are black, Wrangler carpenter pants I purchased from Walmart a few years ago, for example. I have a large number of comic-book-related t-shirts, both Marvel and DC. Over the past three years or so, the vast majority of them have been purchased at Walmart. Not kidding. Yes, I have some obscure ones I've gotten from Amazon and the like, but most of them are $7.50 Walmart tees. My favorite sandals came from there, I get almost all of my white t-shirts and dye for tie-dyeing there, etc. I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you get the point. 

My overall point is that they rotate their clothing stock a lot, and add a ton more to it while marking everything old down on clearance at different times of the year. As fall is rapidly approaching, they're trying to clear out their stock of shorts and short-sleeved shirts as quickly as possible, so, for example, all of those are on clearance right now. I ended up picking up three nice, plaid button-up shirts for $5 each, shirts which will be good shirts for me to teach in this fall. I now probably have enough somewhat dressier clothing to teach in for a few weeks at a time. Supplemented with my stock of fleece pullovers/jackets and zip-up hoodies, jackets, and sweaters, I should be just fine for the fall semester when it comes to somewhat respectable adjunct professor attire. I hated to spend the extra $15, but I do need these things; I am no longer a graduate student simply teaching a few classes to get free tuition and a small paycheck -- I am now a professor, living completely off that paycheck, more... adult(?) and more respected, and I can't get away with teaching every day in my Batman shirts and board shorts. 
 
Well, I probably could, but it's not necessarily a good look for all-the-time anymore. 

But then, I saw it, and those things I wrote about above went completely out the window. I became a monster when, and because, I purchased this: 

 

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is, indeed, a rainbow tie-dye shirt with a screenprinted cat on it. And yes, I plan to wear it. A lot.

You may think this is the tackiest thing you have ever seen, and I would be inclined to agree with you. It is as if the clothiers of Walmart dove deep into my brain's subconscious while I was sleeping and picked out two of the most prevalent things in my life, two things which help to define me as a person -- tie-dye and cats -- and combined them in a wholly unholy fashion into the monstrosity you see above. I was drawn to it. It was like hypnosis. I don't remember seeing it, I only remember mindlessly picking it up and putting into the cart, because for some inexplicable reason I was not leaving the store without that shirt in my possession.

Also, the cat in question looks remarkably similar to my cat Sadie, or "my shadow," as I call her, since she rarely leaves my side:

See the resemblance? It's spooky -- though this is, regrettably, an older picture of her.

There's this too:

 

Ahem.

Anyway. I am going to be that guy, the guy who wears that shirt un-ironically in public places. I'm planning to wear it this week when I go to campus to pick up my other course materials and office stuff, partially because I can and partially because it's sort of my last blast of being able to wear whatever I want, whenever I want when I'm on campus -- starting a week from today, as I mentioned before, I have to exude at least a bare minimum of class most of the time. That shirt is totally classless and I know it full well; it may not be as bad as my shirt displaying the graphic of a guy giving two middle fingers and saying "Welcome to Wichita," but it does not have class and sticks out like a sore thumb. It's more of a special occasions shirt, much as the "Welcome to Wichita" shirt. That one I almost feel as if I should bequeath to an incoming GTA whenever I make my final departure from the university -- whenever that may be, anyway. 

I did get my other groceries at Walmart as planned; it's not like the cat shirt hypnotized me that much. 

As mentioned above, one of my other tasks today was to redo, reorganize, and complete my 101 syllabus for this semester. I wrote here before about how the template syllabus emailed out to us was riddled with small errors and conflicting information; the class has been changed quite a bit since I last taught it in 2011. The interim writing director added a fifth paper, changed around a lot of the readings, and meticulously scheduled everything possible with almost no wiggle room for various small things or instructions that may occasionally pop up (such as when I notice, for example, that everyone is making the same exact error in a paper -- things like that need to be addressed). Our former department chair, who has once more re-assumed the position of Writing Program Director -- the position he had when I started grad school -- has taken the class back to form, and it is now operating with the original four-paper plan I always taught my class under, with very few other changes. This is different than what post-2011 grad students and other instructors have taught, so it will be an adjustment for them, but for me, this change isn't really a change at all; it's basically a return to the structure I always taught 101 under. It allowed me to re-craft his template syllabus and blend it with my own from two years ago, tweaking things here and there (changing page numbers to reflect those in the newer editions of the books, replacing one reading with another, etc), but for the most part I will be able to structure and run the same class I ran back then. As such, I completed overhauling my syllabus within an hour, and spent another half hour or so reworking the schedule for the entire first unit of the class. I now have a foundation, lesson plans, and a base of operations to work with -- and could dive right into teaching the class tomorrow if I wanted to. All I need is my class roster and to make copies of the syllabus. 

My 011 class is not this simple. We are now less than a week from the start of classes and I still have no lesson plans, template syllabus to build my own from, or the class's required books. Suri, my friend who has taught 011 in the past, gave me a weekly lesson plan she constructed herself, but it is only one small piece of the puzzle, and not enough to create an entire class around. 011 is the remedial English class; it's a class that students who need more work in English before they take 101 and 102 test into, and it's a no-credit class as well (as far as I know, anyhow), meaning it doesn't count toward their total hours for any given degree program. As such, it focuses on the basics of writing -- the parts of speech, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph structure, etc. It is a wholly different class than English 101 or 102. While I could craft my own unique 011 course from scratch (I did this anyhow, basically, for my 681 "Editing American English" course's final project about eighteen months ago), I would much prefer to have a tried-and-true method of instruction instead of flying blind and solo into the jungle of remedial English. The person in charge of this program is the Director's wife, who -- as you may recall -- I have a great working relationship with already, as it was she who originally designed and helmed the Engineering English courses before I took over. She's very good about getting us course materials and allowing us to have our reign over our classes, so if I have to report to anyone as an adjunct professor, I'm glad it's her. She hasn't sent out anything yet about the sections of 011, though. Amanda, who is in my groo...ahem, Raiding Party, is teaching 011 for the first time this semester as well, and we're both looking forward to getting the materials for the class. 

Being the proactive person I am with a really friendly, respectful working relationship with the Director's wife, I sent her a brief email earlier about teaching 011 this semester and needing the syllabus and any template lesson plans she has. I don't want to be or sound needy, of course, but I do need to get that stuff all finished, if possible, tomorrow or Wednesday so that I can print it out here at home and drop off a copy order for the syllabi on Thursday when Daisy and I go back to campus again. The 011 syllabus is critical to that mix, as it's the first class I teach on Monday.

"If I don't get any of that stuff," I told Suri a few nights ago, "I may as well go into class and say something along the lines of 'Hi, I'm your professor, but even though I have three years of teaching experience under my belt, I've never taught this class before and have nothing for you. See you Wednesday.'"

"That might actually be a better idea," Suri said. I wasn't sure whether she was being sarcastic or not. 

I also told the Director's wife that she could meet Daisy, referred to in my email as "my fiancee," if she was going to be around Thursday and could chat about the class and the like.

I know the department is busy; that much is apparent, what with all of the orientation stuff going on right up through Friday (I would assume, anyhow). I don't like bugging or bothering anyone when I don't have to, but I think a few days of advance notice on anything would be nice. That may not usually be how the department works, I know, but I'm naturally antsy and when I have work that needs to be done, it drives me up the wall if I can't do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Add Daisy coming down here into the mix, and if I don't get it done ASAP, I'll likely be working on it all weekend up until I go to bed on Sunday night, not only losing my last few days of precious time off but also more than likely missing most of this weekend's NFL preseason games. I also have the new season of Community arriving on my doorstep today, and I have to pay my credit card bill and the re-registration on my car sometime relatively soon as well. I mean, I've already got stuff to do. I have to take care of what I can when I can.

Right now, however, it's incredibly late and I am incredibly tired. If I do not go to bed soon, I will not awaken until late afternoon.  

The Raiding Party

Countdown to fall semester: eight days

It has been a busy and productive past two days. This morning I did as I mentioned in my last post, and got up (fairly) early. I drank a pot of coffee, popped an allergy pill, and then dressed myself to go to the gas station to fill the 2-gallon gas tank I use for the mower. While there, I found that 1.8 gallons of gas (it began to overflow the tank) was something like $7. Yikes. Then I remembered that I haven't filled that little tank since...oh, spring 2011-ish, and that it had lasted me and the mower well over two years. I could've topped off the car's gas tank as well, but as I've only driven 22 miles total since my last fill-up, there was little point to it. What, put less than a gallon in my car? Why bother?


From there I drove back up the street to the car wash. I'd brought quarters with me -- eight dollars in quarters, in fact -- to wash the car. It's $1.75 in the machine per "cycle," which, if you've not gone to a self-service car wash since the 80s or 90s...is exactly like the self-service car washes of the 80s and 90s. I did a soak cycle, a soap pressure-wash cycle, and did half-and-half of a rinse and spot-free rinse cycle. This is almost always what I do. It takes about ten minutes to wash and rinse off the car. And damn, did my car need it. As I said yesterday, it was getting hard to tell that the car was actually black once, seeing as it had a brown-grey layer of dust and dirt on it from over a year of going unwashed. When I power-washed it with the gun, I watched that brown-grey stuff run off in layers. Most of the car's paint and clearcoat is still really good; there's a little rust around some of the edges, and/or cracks in the plastic molding here and there (at some point before I bought it, someone smacked it gently in the front right quarter panel area, and it's bent in a bit towards the headlight), but overall the car's body and paint is in pretty good shape. The only place where the paint is really faded is on the hood (the hood is almost grey at this point) and on the front part of the roof, where it looks like someone had attached a luggage rack or police light to it at some point.

Before leaving the car wash, I bought two packs of the pre-moistened glass-cleaner towels out of the vending machine there and stuck them in the car; at some point I need to clean off the inside of the windshield, as it's dusty and fogs up really easily. It's not smoke residue, just dust and dirt (I only very rarely smoke in the car, and never when I'm driving because I can't focus on the two things at once).

I returned home, came back upstairs to drop off my pocket stuff (wallet, phone, keys, etc) and went back downstairs, where I filled the empty gas tank of the mower and began mowing.

It was a nightmare.

I don't like to over-dramatize things, but, it sucked. A lot. The rains have made the grass grow not three, but at least four or five inches in the past two weeks. I also don't have a flat yard; both my front and back yards have some incline to them, the back more than the front. And I have a dinky, four-year-old, $80 push mower from Walmart. Therefore, my yard was a jungle more than it has been for the entire summer. And, unbeknownst to me, unseen under that thick jungle, it was also a wet, muddy swamp. This was after three full days of no rain, and after yesterday when everyone in my neighborhood seemingly mowed their own yards with no issue.

It took me more than twice as long to mow the grass as it normally does. The mower got clogged with wet grass and sputtered off no fewer than fifty times, which was basically once per pass in the back yard. It was tiring and infuriating. Add to this that I took extra time (probably close to an hour) trimming the weeds out front with scissors and hand clippers as well, since they're so tall and against structures that the mower won't get them, and my back muscles are sore now. By the time I was finished with everything, it was close to 4PM, and my thick t-shirt was soaked through with sweat almost to the point where it looked like I'd showered with my clothes on. I stripped in the basement and took a long, cold shower upstairs to cool off. Even with the coffee to supply me with energy and the allergy pill to keep me from dying due to pollen overload, I was still absolutely exhausted. It felt like a thousand-mile walk to put the mower back into the garage from the back yard.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I may be a bit out of shape.

This is not, however, the "big story" of the weekend. The big story of the weekend is that I have assembled my "groomsmen" party for the wedding, but, well, the process behind that has been an interesting one.

For a while, as you may know, I was considering not having any sort of groomsmen or a "groom's party" at all. Daisy has already picked all the members of her bridal party save for one, and all of them knew without a doubt they'd be in the bridal party from the beginning. I, however, had it much harder -- while Daisy is surrounded by family and friends in Omaha, mine are few and far between out here in Kansas, and many of them have already graduated and moved on (or will graduate and move on before the wedding occurs). This wouldn't normally limit me, but with us both right in the middle of the country, for anyone not in the surrounding area it will not only be expensive for them to attend the wedding, but they more than likely will choose against it due to the travel factor. I've got many people who love me dearly all across the country, but I don't know how many of them love me enough to be able to afford a few days off work and the airfare to fly to Omaha. Especially dudes, which is generally what a party of "groomsmen" is supposed to be. They're traditionally all male.

I'd run the idea across Daisy's plate before about having female groomsmen, or exclusively female groomsmen. I thought it was cute and funny that she would have her bridal party all decked out in dresses and flowery shit, and I'd have a badass troop of women decked out in sport coats and pants. She thought this would be cool -- I could pick anyone I wanted for my "groomsmen" and we'd roll with it. I brought it up again last night -- because, clearly, if I'm getting married in nine months I need to get my proverbial shit together -- and asked her if she meant that, if she thought it would be a good idea. She once again gave me the affirmative.

Now, mind you, I do have male friends. I do. But, again, most of them are graduating or have already graduated and moved on in life. On the other hand, I have many more female friends than male friends (and it's always been that way, for some reason), and I tend to be a lot closer to my female friends than the guys, with only a few exceptions -- Parker being one of them, of course. So, I floated the idea publicly on Facebook:

Seriously considering my "groomsmen" to be comprised primarily of women (with the exception of Parker) dressed in jackets/slacks and tuxedo t-shirts. So not kidding. Thoughts?

I got many affirmatives and much support with this idea, so I decided to press forth with it -- or at least a version of it, anyway. 

By the way, yes, that is the wedding attire for my side. I'll be wearing it too.

Parker was always a given; it had been decided many moons ago that he would be a part of the wedding in some fashion, if only to be in charge of my wardrobe (which yes, he supports wholeheartedly as well). I always thought he knew he was de facto in the groom's party because of this, yet he was taken aback and honored when we started talking plans for everything last week. I told him that of course he was in -- he was the first person to tell me he'd be at the wedding and offered anything he could do to help once Daisy and I announced our engagement back in February. So, with me and him in place, I could begin to assemble my group.

I will start by saying that there were several I had in mind anyway from the get-go. Daisy told me that a group of five or six is what she was shooting for, so that was my magic number as well...which was good, since even though the wedding itself is going to be fairly small and non-traditional, the number of people I wanted to involve with it on my side was about that many. I began to put together my A-Team.

I love it when a plan comes together.

First up was my brother -- my oldest brother who's married with three kids. If anyone in my family aside from my parents would actually come to the wedding, it would be him. I sent him a message last night about it, but got no response (he works weird hours, he plays in bands, etc -- this was to be expected). I moved on.

Obviously, if I'm doing this the way I want to do it, there was no way I was doing it without asking Rae -- and she accepted quickly and wholeheartedly. She's totally gung-ho for the occasion and has been since the beginning, much like Parker. Rae, of course, graduated with me this past spring, and now lives/works in her hometown of Cincinnati, but had already made plans to come back here for the wedding regardless.

Next was my friend Amanda, who I'm really close with but haven't really mentioned here in the blog. She's also a colleague and still a current grad student. She also immediately accepted; as a plus, she goes to Omaha all the time, so she knows the city.

That was four. I asked two other friends; one declined due to her upcoming graduation and not knowing where she's going to be or what she'll be doing by the time the wedding rolls around -- which I completely, and totally understand; for fuck's sake, I've been there, you know? A lot. Totally legit reasons there, with no hard feelings on either side whatsoever. The other was my friend April in Portland, who I've written about here before at length, and who already planned to fly in for the wedding and wished we could get more time together while she was here. Well, this was her chance. April also immediately accepted this afternoon, and was also totally gung-ho about it.

That only left my brother.

I've never been especially close with my brother; he's more than ten years older than me and we've always operated on slightly different wavelengths. He has also been married since I was in middle school, so for most of my formative years I only got to see him and spend time with him during the holidays or during gatherings of the extended family on my dad's side. As you may know, we're not related by blood; he's my dad's oldest son, though we have always looked upon each other as brothers, and that's never going to change. I haven't seen him in at least eighteen months, though we are in regular contact most of the time on Facebook. What he doesn't know is that I look up to him quite a lot, and always have -- he's got a wonderful wife and is a great father to three awesome kids, holds down a respectable, awesome job, and...oh yeah, he's covered in tattoos and has been in several fairly successful bands which have released actual, successful albums and have gone on successful tours. Yep, that's my brother. And I am very proud to call him that.

Because he's my brother, logic, tradition, and flat-out rank would dictate that he be selected for the title of "best man," though with a group as non-traditional as my A-Team was, I didn't even know if I should have a "best man" or "best person" at all. And, of course, I didn't want to offend Parker, the only other male in the group besides myself. I told Parker that I was asking my brother to be my best man, and hoped that it didn't offend him or otherwise cause ill will between us. Let me tell you, that was hard to say. I knew on some level that Parker wouldn't mind (and he didn't; he was flattered to be in the running at all) but for that split second, I had to make one of those tough choices that could have ended up souring proverbial milk between one or more parties. So I asked my brother if he wanted the job, and totally meant it -- not out of obligation or out of guilt, but because I want him there and want him to be a part of the wedding.

He got back to me this afternoon, accepting it and giving me the affirmation that he was incredibly honored to do so and be asked. I now have a family member in my wedding, something that I thought only Daisy would get to have, since I'm so far from the rest of my family.

So the gang was set. "The Raiding Party," as I called it, was complete. I made the announcement on Facebook. I have picked an ensemble of really eclectic people, only two of whom (Parker and myself) have no tattoos whatsoever. April and my brother are covered in them, and Rae and Amanda have several between them.

Well, at least I don't think Parker has any tattoos. He may have one hidden somewhere he never talks about; I've never asked, actually.

This is, of course -- in total Brandon fashion -- strongly contrasted with Daisy's bridal party, consisting of (those I know so far) herself, her two sisters, and two friends, one of whom is her best friend and maid of honor. In comparison to Daisy's bridal party, my Raiding Party is like the Addams Family, where Parker is the only normal one.

"Just think of the photography alone," I told the members of my party. "Seriously."

Imagine, if you will, all of Daisy's bridal party in their pretty dresses and flowers getting their traditional, sweet family-and-friends wedding pictures taken. And now imagine us, in tuxedo t-shirts, probably sneakers as well, with people who have multicolored hair (April is notorious for this, and I encourage it hardcore for the wedding), tattoos, and beards on the guys (well, again, except for Parker; the man is always clean shaven). We're going to look like misfit pirates in suits. And it's going to be awesome. I told my brother that he can cut the sleeves off the tuxedo t-shirt for our photo shoots if he likes, as that would let him show off the tats.

Seriously, all we need are a few motorcycles and some aviator shades, and we'd be a gang. And I already have the aviators.

So that's one more piece of the puzzle done. Like I said, Daisy still has to pick one or two more people, but I've got my side of things locked down. Travel, however, may be a problem. Again, as I mentioned, I didn't want to put people into a situation where they'd be taking off work and spending a bunch of money to fly to Omaha, but it looks like that's the way it's going to happen anyhow, at least for half of us. Me, Parker, and Amanda will all be here, but my brother's flying from Pittsburgh, April's flying in from Portland, and Rae (who I'm guessing will be flying) is coming in from Cincy. All of them would be coming anyway, but for some reason I still feel guilty about it.

Daisy is coming down this week; she should be here on Tuesday night or early Wednesday. It's the last time we'll get to see each other for a while with classes starting up for me in a week. Once more, she will come with me to campus, when I go down there on Thursday to see what I can set up with getting books and literature for my new classes. I need to have the syllabus for my 011 class finished and ready by Friday, as otherwise I won't be able to get copies of it made before class on Monday (especially if I don't have office space there somewhere by that time, whether it be with Parker or otherwise). On the first day of classes, it's not like anyone has time to make copies of syllabi for who knows how many GTAs and professors, and by that time I'll have to know how many copies I need, as well. The latest I can put in a copy order for my 101 syllabus is on Monday morning when I get there, and I'd have to have them made by the time I left that day, otherwise I'd be rushing around the West campus on Tuesday morning before class starts trying to get copies made there...which is probably not the best way to give a good impression to the West campus staff on my first day there. I doubt I'll have to rush a lot of this; I'm guessing I'll get a lot more information via email either tomorrow or Tuesday, but still, a bit of panic sets in when I realize that I don't have everything I need taken care of, I don't have access yet to my class rosters or most of the necessary materials, and classes start in a week. Once that first day hits, it's one long slog as always to the end of the road in December.

AND I just realized that I need to email back the university in Maryland to tell them that I'm teaching here this fall. Shit. Gotta do that tomorrow too.

So much to do, so little time, I suppose.

Ch-ch-changes

I logged on to the university email system this afternoon to shoot an email to the two administrators, asking them if they'd double-check to see that I was on all of the pertinent mailing lists (since I didn't get the tentative schedule email yesterday). I hate to bother them, but that's kind of important and with me being on the main campus much less this semester than ever before, it's even more important that I know what's going on in the department when it comes to administration and events. My campus email is and has always been spotty anyhow; last summer, for example, it didn't work at all for about a month when I was teaching summer sessions. Students would email me and said emails would simply vanish into cyberspace, never to arrive in my inbox. I proved this in class one night when I had a student send me a test email from her laptop which (of course) never arrived, and she showed it to me in her "sent" folder showing that it had been successfully delivered. I had to resort to having students email me at my personal address (something that I'll never do again if I can possibly avoid it, if only because I've eschewed most email communication for communication via Twitter and Facebook). I've known fellow instructors who have given out their personal cell number to their students for calls and texts, which I think is insane, but y'know, whatever, to each their own. My phone is off 90% of the time anyhow, and it's prepaid, so that wouldn't exactly work for me even if I had that sort of mentality.

Anyway, once I'd sent my email, I clicked on Blackboard for the first time since May to check it, and...whoa. It's been majorly updated. I can't add anything to any folders for any classes yet, since those classes I'm teaching haven't been assigned to me, formally, through Blackboard or Banner, but the layout has been overhauled and changed around quite a bit. This is at least the third major update Blackboard has had since I've been teaching...for only three years.

For those of you unfamiliar with academia or what Blackboard is, it's a program integrated into the university's online/email/classes system. It can be used for a large number of things, but at the university, we English instructors mainly use it for storage, messaging, announcements, and plagiarism detection (through the built-in, and often-mentioned-here SafeAssignment). There's a "page" set up for each class we teach, and on that page we can post folders full of class documents, readings, assignments/SafeAssignments, and class announcements. At least, that's what I've always used it for. There are many other uses for it, including an interactive grade board, online journals, online testing, media center, etc. 90% of what Blackboard can do is lost on simple composition and writing classes, since most of the class instruction comes simply from, y'know, being in class and listening to the lecture. I used Blackboard a lot more for my Engineering English classes, since those students were all nerds like me and appreciated being able to click on videos from YouTube, for example, that discussed another angle of what we were covering in class. Most of my grad school classes didn't use it at all, and because it's such a pain in the ass to do anything with at times (especially the online grading component) I try to use Blackboard as little as possible outside of posting class documents and sending out announcements.

I forgot to mention before that last week when I was on campus, I learned something really interesting about the new recruits (read: incoming new GTAs) -- their orientation is now almost two full weeks long, and includes all sorts of stuff that me and my colleagues didn't have to deal with when we were students. My own orientation, in 2010, was three days -- the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the week before classes started. It was relatively painless; there were a few long lectures, including the infamous "don't have sex with your students, but if you do, we've got good lawyers, and whatever happens we've never lost a case" speech, and then we got our schedules and offices. In fall 2011, we had to go in there another extra day because there was new Blackboard training (go figure) on stuff that approximately 5% of us would actually use, and 90% of that training was rendered obsolete by the end of that semester anyway, etc. I think I went for one day of orientation last fall, because it was the only day that all of the GTAs were required to attend. I can't exactly remember now, because by last fall it didn't matter, and I already knew the drill on everything -- it was mainly just going through the motions and having a day to set up my office a bit more to ready for the semester overall. I really couldn't tell you what the hell they've got GTAs in there for almost two weeks for now, unless there have been some really drastically-updated policies for GTAs this fall.

I'm cultivating my professor look for the fall, and as such, I haven't shaven in about two weeks, if not longer. The last time I shaved was the week before Daisy was here, so that would be a little more than two weeks ago now. I will "trim up," so to speak, before I begin teaching, but the beard is coming back, especially as my hair grows out over the fall.

"Oh no, I just thought of something," Daisy told me the other night.

"What?"

"You're going to have all of those high school girls taking your class fawning all over you," she said.

My 101 class is taught on the West campus; I've been told that the majority of the students who take 101 there take it through the local high school as seniors, for a dual-credit, off-campus course. I took my own English 101 (and 102) class in high school before I started at WVU, though it was still in the high school itself and taught by one of the normal high school teachers. My class is still a university-level English 101 class; it's taught no differently than any other 101 class.

"No, they're not," I told her, "trust me. I am not an attractive man."

Well? I'm really not, you know. Even less so when I have long hair and a beard like a wild woodsman.

"I should have you start wearing your wedding ring already, to class," Daisy told me, rolling her eyes.

I do have my wedding ring already -- the ring I'll more than likely use as my wedding ring, anyway. I bought it on Amazon months ago very cheaply to test the style and fit, and ended up liking it so much that I'll probably end up using it. If I see something else I like in the meantime, I may get another one instead -- but, for all intents and purposes, I've already got the ring now.

As an aside, for a guy as big as I am, I have relatively short fingers and small hands. They're not like, club fingers or anything, but it's just something I've noticed while looking for rings for both of us.

Anyway, changing gears...today is the first rain-free day we've had here in Newton in almost two full weeks, and right now I'm hearing no less than three lawnmowers going at once around my neighborhood, including both the neighbor next to me and the one behind me. Meanwhile, I slept until 1PM, because I couldn't care less.

I will have to mow my grass again sometime over the next few days if it stays dry; I may do it tomorrow. I have no gas for the mower, however, so I need to go get that first. I really don't care about it. It's going to rain more this coming week anyway, so even if I mow it tomorrow it'll grow another three inches by next week, and I won't have any time or patience to cut it then, either. It is the chore-iest of all of my household chores, and by far the most physically strenuous. Add terrible allergies to that, and halfway through mowing I'm coughing, sneezing, and gagging in addition to all of the sweating. When it's been rainy and the grass is actually healthy, it's a huge pain in the ass to mow it all -- I have to take an allergy pill and allow it to kick in, and drink basically a pot of coffee rapidly in order to give me enough energy to do it in the morning (before the sun gets too high in the sky and blinds me, or burns my pasty white skin off). Yet, I know I have to do it soon or I will no longer have time to do it except on my days off from teaching. With all of this rain and the (mostly) mild summer we've had for the past month or so, I would imagine I'll be mowing well into mid-September or October.

But oh well. It's not like I have any choice in the matter. I have to mow the grass, since it is, y'know, a city ordinance. I can be fined for it if I don't do it.

I've been more preoccupied as of late with school stuff, getting time with Daisy, and watching episode after episode of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, which I will more than likely (sadly) finish tonight during dinner. I have ordered the fourth season of Community, which came out last week, I think, and that will be coming soon to replace the hole left by Todd, but still.

Daisy is very happy for me that I've gotten three classes to teach, but she is also distressed because it means we will have much less time together. I'll be working all week, and she'll be working at nights on the weekends...when I'll still be working because I'll have grading and lesson-planning to do. Unless she somehow gets her nights off switched to the weekends -- basically the opposite schedule she has now -- she'll never be able to come and visit during the semester because I'll be teaching during the days (and, later in the semester, the evenings as well) every day but Friday. Neither of us like this, of course, and we realize it's not ideal, but it is what we have to deal with right now in order for me to be able to survive and pay bills. For the first half of the semester, at least, my workload should be relatively light and my free time at home to sleep and decompress should be somewhat abundant, but that depends on what the paper schedules turn out to be this semester and how they run for the clasess I'm teaching. I may be home more, but if all the time I spend awake is spent grading and/or lesson-planning, it's not going to be that fun. Once the business writing class starts in October, everything will become even more hectic as two of my four days per week, I will be outside of the house for thirteen or fourteen hours straight again.

I shrug. There's just not a lot that I can do about it, and I need the money. Badly. This is my lot as a teacher. I told her, of course, that I wouldn't just up and ignore her, that I love her and would do everything I could possibly do to make as much time for her, for us, as I can. But it's going to be a long, lonely semester for the most part, filled with lots of work to do. I barely get a few hours per day to talk to Daisy now -- long gone are the days where we'd spend ten hours a day on Skype together. We both work and sleep and have other shit to do.

Today I vacuumed the house, as it sorely needed it. I need to clean the toilet later, possibly tonight, and I need to get a shower as well. I haven't showered in probably three days, mostly because it hasn't been 95 degrees outside or in the house, and I haven't been sweating through my clothing every few hours like I do when it's that hot. Right now it's a comfortable 82 outside, and 84 in my Man Cave.

I still didn't sleep that well last night into today; I should have, really, since a lot of my stresses were/are lessened, but I kept waking up every few hours, my allergies were killing me, and the cats always seemed to want to sleep exactly where I needed to stretch out my legs.

Maybe if it's nice in the morning I'll go run the errands I need to do before mowing the grass; I need to get gas for the mower anyway, so maybe I'll do that and go over to the car wash to finally get the layer of road dirt and Kansas dust off of the Monte Carlo. It's been over a year since I've washed the car. No, that's not a joke, that's totally the truth. I haven't washed her since like...last July? Something like that? And ugh, does she need it. She's no longer black, but a grey-brown sort of black. There's still a fair amount of shine left in her paint, even though it's old and faded; she can look good when I want her to:

And that was when she had her old, shitty back tires, too.

On that note, I'm going to end this post; I have little else to say, and I need to go eat dinner, shower, probably clean the toilet, and go to bed sometime tonight so that I can get up early in the morning.

A Time of Great Change, Part II

Countdown to fall semester: ten days

I have received my teaching schedule for the fall. Or, rather, one of my friends has forwarded it to me, as I was not apparently on the email list for it (this happens a lot more than I'd like to admit, to be honest with you; it used to happen all the time when I was still a student there).

I am pleasantly surprised, though I'm going to be busy. Very busy.

I have three classes to teach: 011, 101, and 210 -- the latter of which is business writing. 011 is on the main campus. 101, as I knew before, is on the West campus. The business writing class is also on the west campus, but it is a night class and it is also an 8-week class which will start meeting on October 10 (if I'm reading the schedule correctly).

This is a lot to take in at once, obviously. Aside from the pay, which will be nice but is the least of my concerns right now, I've never taught 011 or 210 before. Essentially I'm being thrown into these classes with no prior instruction on how to teach them or lesson plans to follow for them. I'll pick up the books and then basically be off on a running start. I'll get a bit of prep time for the 210 class, of course, but still a running start.

So, in a way, it's very similar to when I first started teaching three years ago as a GTA. Greeeeeeeat.

I also won't have any full days off; my 011 class is on Monday and Wednesday, and my 101 class is on Tuesday and Thursday, on different campuses. When the 210 class starts up, it'll be on Tuesday and Thursday nights for three hours each time. That'll make those nights long ones; I won't get home until probably close to 11PM (par for the course for me on those days, really, as I'm used to those late nights from grad school).

Well, except for Friday. Because no English classes are taught on Fridays, and it's been like that since 2010.

I don't know anything about office assignments; what I do know is that I'll have to have copies of my syllabus done by Monday morning (the 19th) when I first start teaching, and I'll have to get those printed/copied somewhere. I don't have a set of 011 books, either, so all of that may have to wait until I actually get to campus. If possible, I'll more than likely go in sometime during this coming week to see if I can get all of this stuff sorted out. I don't really have a choice, honestly; I have to be able to see what I can get done before these classes start. As tonight is Friday night, it's not like I can hop in the car and go down there tomorrow.

This is about as official as things get right now; nothing has been entered into Banner or Blackboard yet, so I can't access my class lists or anything like that to know how many copies of my syllabi I'll need, nor do I know how many students I have total in all of my classes combined. But, I will say this: it takes an even larger weight off of my shoulders to know that I'll be doing something to keep busy, something that I'm good at and love doing, and will be getting 3X what I was originally expecting to be paid ('cause, y'know, three classes). This will do more than simply cover my monthly bills and expenses -- it will hopefully allow me to slowly begin saving money again, and will allow me to save up some cash to put toward the wedding, if I'm lucky. Will it make me financially stable? No, not by a long shot -- I'll still have to adjust my monthly loan repayment amount pretty soon, more than likely -- but it will make me stable enough for the time being to where I won't have to pinch every penny, worry about being able to keep my gas tank full, or worry about ordering a pizza once in a while due to finances. It will make me okay for a while.

As for the newspaper? I don't know. I'll have to play it by ear for a few weeks to see what's going to happen and how busy those classes will keep me. Small classes will mean more time to write and do writing-like-things. Large classes will mean I'll never sleep and will be constantly grading things with little time for anything else, especially in the second half of the semester when I'll have the business writing class under my wing as well. Still? I don't really care about the work. Yes, I'll be teaching, which means that there will be a lot of teaching work involved. And, if I learned anything as a graduate student, it's that enough strong coffee and cigarettes can and will get me through basically anything, even a total, delirious lack of sleep.

I have gotten a set of updated 101 lesson plans from Parker, and have requested 011 lesson plans and a syllabus from my friend Suri, who has taught the class before. I'll need those things to that I'm not completely lost when I go in there in a week and a half.  Parker has some great, really-detailed lesson plans, which is something I needed since I haven't taught 101 in two years.

Much of the next ten days will be spent drafting out lesson plans and syllabi; I don't really have much of a choice there. The (now former) Chair, restored to his former position of Director of the Writing Program, sent us an example syllabus for 101 a few days ago, but while it is useful in many respects, it is two years old and has a lot of parts and parameters which are no longer applicable to the class, some dates are wrong, etc. We were encouraged as GTAs (and even more as professors, now) to edit and curtail our template syllabus to whatever we wish it to be as long as we don't alter the assignments of the class. I can do this and can do it quite easily; I've only been doing it for three years now, after all. I still need a bit more information from the department and from the program itself before I can finalize a syllabus.

Also, apparently the department is an absolute mess right now; Parker will be trying to get me into the spare desk in his office so that I have a base of operations on the main campus for printing, copies, and whatever office hours I'll have. Parker is also highly-respected in the department, so he has a bit of pull as well. If I can get into the spare desk in his office, it'll all be gravy for the main campus side of things.

The problem, however, comes in around October.

As mentioned above, I have a night class on the West campus, the business writing class. That starts October 10, on Tuesday/Thursday nights. I teach in the same room, my 101 class, those mornings as well. You can probably see where this is going -- there's a nine-hour gap between my classes.

Some of you may be asking well, why don't you go home, get food, take a nap, etc between the classes and then come back?

Yeah, I could do that if I wanted to, if I wanted to drive 100 miles a day twice a week in my poor old car, and spend the gas money to do so. I'd rather not. I can't afford the gas for that, nor do I have the patience involved. Once October rolls around, I'll have to be able to set up shop somewhere in the West campus building, somewhere I can do grading and other class-related work, because I won't really be able to leave and go back home/come back. I could wander around the small town of Maize if I'd like; there's a Five Guys there, as well as a shopping center and a (huge) Goodwill store across the street, but I can't do that shit every week. For one, as much as I love Five Guys, they're expensive and I'd gain 100 pounds over the semester. For two, that wandering the town shit is going to get really old really fast. I could drive over to the main campus and back as well, but that would also put a fair amount more miles on the car, and I'd have to fight tooth and nail for parking there during the midday hours.

At least I'll always have the Goodwill right next to West campus, though, so that I can get rid of a bunch of my old stuff and/or get more dressy-like clothes. I'm not exactly sure how "dressy" I'll have to be as a professor. I mean, I have some dress clothes, but still, it's August, and even if it's in the 70s outside now, it will more than likely be in the 80s or 90s before it cools down for the fall. I want to be able to actually, y'know, dress like I normally dress, at least sometimes anyway.

Still, I will admit that I can't wait to break out the several new pairs of corduroy pants I purchased from the Goodwill in Omaha earlier this summer. And I have slowly been collecting more dressy-ish clothing to teach in, or at least clothing that isn't t-shirts-and-shorts. For example, when I was at Walmart two days ago, I picked up two sweatshirts on clearance for $3 each. I've picked up some polo shirts, some somewhat classy button-up shirts and a jacket or two as well, all on clearance. Is it enough to clothe me classily for four days per week? Probably not, but it's enough to keep me business-casual a lot of the time. I'm never going to be one of those professors who wears sport coats with patches on the elbows and sharp, sassy neckties, as good as that may make me look, because it's totally not my scene. I'm the guy who dresses nicely a few days a week, and wears hoodies/comic book t-shirts the other days. At least the first half of the semester's attire will depend heavily on the weather. It's 73 degrees right now in August. At this rate, who knows, we could be getting snow next month. After all, we had snow in May.

The weather slightly worries me, especially on those late nights the second half of the semester will bring. As you know, Kansas is a really weird state. It's not uncommon to get a snowstorm/ice storm in November or early December as the semester is wrapping up, and it's a long, dark drive back home -- especially from West campus -- if the weather is bad. I'll have to deal with that if it comes to it, of course. It's not like I'm the kind of person to cancel classes at the drop of a hat, especially if I'm already on campus (as I will be those nights) but it is something to think about, at least.

But, of course, I'm getting too ahead of myself.

Hearing the news today and seeing my schedule -- however tentative it may be at this juncture -- has made me more...tired, really, than anything else. I'd been under so much low-level stress that learning what I'll be doing, when, and where lifted those weights off of me and left me...sleepy. Like I've been in some sort of low-level panic and it's somehow, subconsciously, kept me from being able to get quality rest as of late. Last night, for example, I slept terribly. It took me forever to fall asleep, and I only got about six hours of actual rest, during which (for at least part of it) I was having some really crazy, stressful dreams. I know part of my shitty sleep cycles are due to my allergies as well, allergies which have been terrible. Even now, I have a sinus headache, and while my ear doesn't feel like it's getting infected anymore, my lungs, nose, and head have been clogged up, and my joints feel all achey as well. Allergies plus lack of quality sleep compound and feed upon one another, as you could probably guess.

This weekend, aside from taking care of updating my syllabi and lesson plans as much as I can, I don't plan on doing a whole lot. I don't have anywhere to go or anything pressing to do except pay my Amazon card bill, and there's football on all weekend. I'll probably enjoy a fair amount of that, honestly. And, since I can afford it...I might order a pizza.

A Time of Great Change, Part I

Dear Mr. [my last name]
I hope this email finds you well. We have reviewed your application for the adjunct position and would like to invite you to campus for an interview. However, for the fall semester, we are looking  for adjuncts who have daytime availability to teach face-to-face classes. If you are available to teach during the day, would you be able to visit our [redacted] campus next week on Tuesday before noon or after 2:30 or Wednesday after 2:30 for an interview? The interview process takes approximately an hour. Best,

[Name], PhD

Professor of English
[School]

You've got to be kidding me, right?

I just received this email yesterday afternoon.

I don't know how to respond to it, really.

The school in question is a community college. In Maryland. In the DC area, actually, right next to where the Washington Redskins play football.

I applied for a teaching position there at least two months ago; they were one of the first applications I filled out (I have a list). They were also one of the many schools which I wrote off about a month ago now because there would be no more time to move cross-country to teach someplace. In June, when I applied, that would have been feasible. In August, it is not. No way, no how. Especially not now that I'll be teaching here this fall.

The email above -- while it is indeed nice and to-the-point, shows that the department there must've read my qualifications and cover letter, but neglected to notice my physical location of Kansas. Can I fault them for this? Well, yes, of course I can -- unless they think I am independently wealthy (which would negate the need for me to be teaching for them as an adjunct), a little closer reading would have helped them to realize that I can't just hop a plane to DC for an interview in four days. It is, again, bittersweet, as this is the only interview request I've received all summer for any teaching position outside my own university.

Had they replied a month ago? It might have been do-able. I might have been able to fly home to visit my parents, detour to that interview, and then fly back here. Now? Nope. It's August 9. Classes here start in ten days. Ten days. I don't know when classes start there, but if they start around the time they do here, that's A) a really fast window for interviews, and B) they must be absolutely desperate for help.

Sorry, can't do anything about it now, ma'am.

I will have to reply this weekend, telling them I have accepted an adjuncting position here, and that I am now unavailable -- but with the caveat that if they would like to hire me on in the spring I would certainly interview with them again at that time, though it would have to be via telephone or Skype. I don't know what else to say, really.

I also received rejections for two different positions I applied for at the University of Colorado, both of them form emails delivered within one minute of one another. Classy.

I have been in sort of a hermit's hibernation period over the past few days, trying to soak in the last bit of "summer vacation" I have left. I put that in quotes because it's not so much "vacation" as it is "forced temporary unemployment." I haven't heard anything else from the department, and Parker (who has been teaching this summer and has been up there quite a bit) told me that it's been crazy busy, so I should cool my proverbial jets and relax a bit while everything works itself out. Whether I'll be offered anything else is unknown, and to be honest with you, I'm starting to get a little panicky about that. I know I'll get the one class I've already been given, but again that's little more than a stopgap when it comes to finances. I told Daisy I hope I get a big load of classes, four or five total, because -- while that will almost certainly not happen, and I would be so busy teaching, grading, and making lesson plans that I'd never sleep, it would allow me to save a buttload of money for the wedding and be able to move out of here whenever necessary. And, of course, I wouldn't have to worry so much about paying bills and starting those student loan payments in a few months.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Walmart. I did not want to, but I could wait no longer -- I needed to get the essentials for another few weeks' survival, and needed cigarettes and coffee. As an aside, I've been drinking relatively little coffee as of late, but I was still almost out of it. This is the first time I've left the house in a week, since I was over at the newspaper last Friday morning. When I go out nowadays, everywhere I go it feels like people are staring at me and judging me silently for some reason. I don't know why, but it does. Yesterday I think I looked fairly normal -- tie-dye shirt, khaki shorts, flip-flops -- but it still felt like everyone was staring at me and judging me, as if they can tell I'm mostly unemployed and useless to society. It was a really weird feeling. I got the stuff I needed at Walmart and got the hell out of there. It was, to say the least, unnerving.

I think my allergies are building up so much that they're compounding on one another, mostly because of all of the rain and storms we've been getting here over the past two weeks or so. I woke up yesterday morning with what feels like a possible ear infection coming on, and have been unable to shake it. I can take allergy medicine and my congestion and the like will go away, but as soon as the pills wear off, everything comes back full-force. Since I can't become dependent on the pills to get rid of everything, I can't take them all the time. I've been drinking a lot of water as well, since I want to see if I can help flush everything out of my system that way. Plus, for some reason I've been really thirsty over the past week, and have been drinking a lot of water. Last night I was having a lot of bowel trouble, and couldn't actually crash and fall asleep until after I took medicine and it kicked in. It's like my body is staging a revolt of some kind.

The storms have quieted down a bit over the past two or three days; I've been awakened once a night or so by a few loud thunderclaps, but nothing else, and certainly nothing like the storms we've been having over the past two weeks. It'll thunder loud once or twice, and then I'll hear a few more softer rumbles, and then nothing. Apparently rain comes with it, at least for a while -- the pavement is always wet or puddled when I get up in the morning. However, it's a lot more difficult for me to hear storms when I'm downstairs in the below-ground bedroom and the low drone of the fan(s) blowing on me creates ambient noise. Since I started this post, however, there's been a lot of little storms and moderate rain popping up on the radar around the area, so I know that once I go to bed I will probably once more be awakened once or twice to some loud thunder.

As for my car and how I hastily stowed it in the garage a few nights ago, apparently I did it well -- when I took it out yesterday I realized that I couldn't have put it in there straighter if I'd tried, and that's a pretty big feat for me since the car is a fucking landboat. When I came home from Walmart, I made sure to pull up in front of my garage door as straight as possible, so that in the case that I have to do the same thing once more if we get more rough storms, I can pull her straight in and pull her in quickly, even with no light but my headlights and if a storm is raging around me.

In this time of change, this time of my last few days of, well, almost total unemployment before I become an honest-to-god professor, I mentioned that I've been rather slothlike and sedentary, trying to enjoy my time left before I have to begin teaching again. It's been my only true relaxation time the entire summer -- up until last week, I got up every day with a mission: apply for whatever jobs I can, be depressed, freak out little by little when nobody wants to hire me as the days pass, etc. Now that I know I'll be teaching again, and that I have a sort of rough game plan laid out for me for this fall, I've finally been able to actually breathe, and I've been able to relax somewhat. Not completely, of course, but somewhat. Enough to where it's not a chore or a miserable exercise to even get up and go about life. Daisy's presence here last week helped with that a lot as well, but being able to relax and do what I want, when I want to, without total gloom-and-doom and failure hanging over my head? I cannot tell you how much that helps me mentally and emotionally. My stress levels, while they will always be high, have lowered considerably.  My sleep has improved. Somewhat, anyway. I can't tell you exactly how much. My energy levels have remained much the same, though I no longer feel as if I'm being crushed by the weight of the earth. This is good.

In my downtime I have watched the entire first season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, a fantastically amusing show from Canada that a friend recommended to me. I liked it so much that I watched the first season of thirteen episodes in two sessions -- ten on Wednesday, three yesterday -- and I ordered the second season set from Amazon immediately, even before I'd finished. It arrives sometime today via UPS.

Twelve Dollars

I realize I haven't written here in several days; it's not that I've not wanted to or that I've been preoccupied, but I just haven't gotten around to it, and not a lot has been going on.

Two nights ago (and again last night, but they were fairly mild and I slept through them), severe thunderstorms moved through the area. They moved in quickly -- first there were a few flashes of lightning and some distant rumbles of thunder (something that doesn't necessarily mean anything's going to happen here, really) and then...bam, full-on horror. I'm guessing that there were some lightning strikes 300-400 yards from the house, and the street became a river. My neighbors' yards turned into small ponds. I had to scramble outside to put my car in the garage because some rather large hail was hitting for about five minutes or so, and in the dark and torrent of the storm I don't even know if I got the car in the garage straight or crooked -- only that I got it in there and closed the garage door quickly. There's no longer a working light in my garage or outside my bottom door, so I did it all on faith, really (only my head/tail lights gave me anything to work with). My internet went out at least twice, and power in my house flickered for several hours -- while I was cooking a late dinner, the lamp in my kitchen flickered three times, and I looked out the window to see that all of the houses around me for several blocks, streetlights included, were completely dark. I must be on a separate grid than they are. An hour or two later, they were back on before I went to bed.

The storms raged for about two hours and then stopped almost as quickly as they'd started. When I awoke earlier this afternoon, there wasn't a cloud in the sky (there still isn't) and it was about 85 outside.This is all apparently to be short-lived, however; more storms are predicted tonight, and again almost every day for the next week. It figures that we'd have two years of crippling, horrible drought and 110+ degree temperatures every day in the summer, and then this summer it becomes monsoon season.

Aside from that, it's been rather quiet around the house since Daisy went back home a few days ago. Yesterday, I folded and put away all my laundry, and washed the bedsheets/pillowcases. Today I haven't done much of anything since I woke up. Much of my days now consist of waiting for things to happen -- for example, I'm still waiting on the English department to tell me if I'm going to get any other classes for the fall (I haven't heard anything yet). I'm also waiting on an interview subject to get back to me and answer my questions for an article I'm trying to write for the paper (he accidentally deleted my last email). I'm waiting as long as possible to go to Walmart to get some groceries and other necessities so that I don't spend any more money than I have to. Etc. In the meantime of all of this waiting, I do (and can do) relatively little; leaving the house to go do something means I'll spend money, and I can only clean or do so much laundry before it either becomes too hot or boring, or I run out of those things to do. Eh. So it goes, I suppose. Ironically, I need to write out the check for my water bill and stick it in the mail today, so even while staying at home I'm still spending money in a sense.

I don't spend a lot of money when I don't need to or have to; for example, I have had twelve dollars in cash in my wallet for well over a month, since I returned from Omaha after the 4th. Part of it is that I don't use cash that much, and part of it is that I don't usually go out anywhere. When I do go out, I tend to spend more than $12 (shopping trips, gas in the car, even a movie at the theater -- all more than $12), so I don't use the cash. Most of the time in the past, the only time I've used cash is to order a pizza with (or something along those lines) so that I didn't have to use my card. Now that Papa John's has my credit card info saved, it's basically a two-click order when/if I get anything from them. I've also had gift cards before, gift cards for years that had balances on them (most of them under $5-10) that I never used the last of because there wasn't much I could do with them. I found a Visa Gift Card I'd had for a long time (can't remember exactly where it came from) and checked the balance on it today -- I had $10.01 left. Nice. I can use that for something.

I also checked the balance of the Walmart gift card my parents got me for Christmas, and it has $8 left on it. Nice as well. That'll get me a tub of cat litter or something along those lines the next time I have to go shopping.

I don't spend any more money than necessary. Never have, really. This past year I've gotten a bit of clothing (all of which I needed), some shoes, underwear, and a few t-shirts. When I go grocery shopping, I get only what I absolutely need to survive for the next two weeks or so, unless I'm with Daisy -- we tend to get more when we're together shopping, if only because I cook much differently when she's here. And you folks already know how mental I get over turning off lights, not running the AC, not using any more water than necessary, etc, when it comes to the bills. I have relatively few expenses in life, and like to keep it that way.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was on campus last week to pick up my diploma, I was able to fill out a form to get me five free transcripts from the university, since I've now graduated and those transcripts are incredibly useful. After next month, they charge former students a nice chunk of cash for transcript requests (and mailing of said transcripts, as well), but until then, they're free. Those transcripts arrived in the mail today, sealed and stamped. I have put them away for safekeeping, as I'll need them -- high-end teaching jobs will require official transcripts at times, and I now have five of them on hand. I also need to see if I can get a digital copy of them as well, in order to be able to include it with applications I have to fill out online. So far, I've been using an unofficial transcript for those, which is all they've required. However, that may not always be the case, and it would be very useful to have a digital one on hand -- an official one.

Regardless of how many courses I'm teaching this fall, whether it remains the one or several, I know (as Daisy knows as well) that I can't do the adjunct thing forever, since it only barely pays the bills. Additionally, I don't want to do it forever -- as mentioned before, adjuncting this fall at the university is basically a last-ditch-plan sort of thing, a stopgap to prevent total hemorrhaging of money. During the fall, no matter how busy I am, I have to keep filling out applications for better positions for the spring, and hope that some of those applications -- regardless of what they are -- are in the Omaha area so that I can get out of Kansas and begin my life with Daisy. However, as optimistic as we both are, she also realizes that this may not be possible:

Kansas officially got notice that he'll be an adjunct professor this fall from the university he graduated from and was a GTA at.  Sure, it's not where we planned to be, but, it works and it definitely has its perks. I'll have the opportunity to enjoy one last fall/beginning of winter with my friends.  Sure, we, Kansas and myself, could end up in Omaha after this semester, but, I'm not counting on it. Although, regardless of whether or not we're living in Omaha we are getting married here. It's not that I don't love Kansas and want to be with him, but, right now that's not how things are and I'll be damned if I'm not going to find the good in this situation.

Even Daisy acknowledges that I may not be able to find anything up there, or anywhere close for that matter, during the fall semester. She's planning a last few months living in the Omaha area, if necessary, because (presumably) if I don't find something around there (or I find something somewhere waaaaaay out of the area) she's either going to be moving here or we'll be moving to wherever the job is. I couldn't tell you which of those three possibilities -- me getting a position in Omaha, me getting a position somewhere else, or me being forced to adjunct again in the spring as well (due to no other options) -- have the biggest chances of happening, because I can't see the future. What I do know is that all I can do is keep looking and keep trying. I also know that Daisy doesn't want us to be apart any more/longer than possible, and that we can't feasibly plan a wedding for next summer if we're living five hours apart and I'm teaching full-time up to a few weeks before the wedding actually occurs.

All of this, of course, is hectic and frantic, and will all have to be figured out quickly and more than likely with little notice. Again, there's a lot of waiting involved. It's not like we live in the Harry Potter universe, where I could wave a wand and say Makus Shittus Happenus! or Financialus Stabilicus! Because that's not how the world works.

As an aside, Makus Shittus Happenus sounds like a spell someone suffering from constipation might cast.

As much as I love teaching, having no option but to adjunct again in the spring in order to be able to pay bills is a nightmare, as the semester will lead right up to shortly before the wedding. I don't know what's going to happen if that scenario comes into play. Daisy doesn't want to live in Kansas any more than I do. The only reason I'm still here is because the university is the only place that's offered me livable employment. Yet, if that scenario occurs, neither of us really have any other options, and we both know it. Daisy is happy for me that I'm teaching this fall, as you can see above, but I can say with at least reasonable certainty that if nothing else comes through before December, she's going to be considerably less happy if adjuncting in the spring is all I can do. We simply can't prepare for a wedding with both of us living so far apart, and it's so not going to work if I was to go up there for a weekend, get married, and then return to my house here in Kansas a husband alone. Um, that's not how it works. Decisions and choices must be made long beforehand.

And, of course, there's also the issue of being able to go back home for a week or so to have the big reception there that my parents are planning. I'm considering scrapping most of the wedding registry and saying "Yeah, just give us cash, seriously, because we'll need that much more than anything else." Daisy at least has a reliable job with decent job security. I have a decent job with security for sixteen weeks at a time that allows me to pay my bills and not do much else.

Tonight's Powerball jackpot is something like $425 million. I sent an email to my mother telling her that she should probably play it on the way home, and told Daisy to do the same. I myself am probably not leaving the house for the next 48 hours or so; the car is still in the garage, I don't have to do any shopping for at least another few days, and more storms are starting to fire up across the state -- the last thing I want is to leave the house and leave the car uncovered in a parking lot for it to be pelted with hail. It's already beat-up enough as it is; I don't need to add busted windows to that as well.

Some of you may be asking "if Daisy or your parents won the Powerball, would you still teach this fall?" And the answer to that would be, of course, yes. Do you know how long it takes for Powerball jackpots to clear taxes and processing? And it's not like I myself would have any claim on any of that money. So yes, I'd put on halfway respectable clothing, I'd get into my beat-up car every day, and I would continue to drive back and forth to teach this semester. Duh. Again, responsibilities.

But in the spring I would totally be building a small mansion. For my cats.

The large one would be for me and Daisy, of course.

Special

I got up this morning, got dressed (Batman t-shirt and shorts, because I'm that kind of nerd) and drove over to the paper to meet with my editor. I didn't shower, I didn't brush my teeth, etc. I didn't really care about making a good impression as much as before -- my editor knows me now, knows I can write a good story, and knows he can trust me with a story. All of this was established when I had my "interview" with him a few weeks ago, and further established when I delivered a story to him not only on time, but early. We have a good rapport anyway and seem to be on much the same wavelength when it comes to writing and working.

I had to go over there this morning to drop off my invoice for the article that ran in the paper last Thursday, an article which, once I got a spare copy of the paper and was able to read it, I found that I misspelled my interviewee's name. Oops. Oh well. I also had to fill out my W-9 form for taxes and the like, and had to bring home the direct deposit form because they require a photocopy of my social security card, and (obviously) I don't carry that with me because I'm not an idiot. So I'll have to bring those back over to the office at some point, which isn't a big deal, seeing as the paper is three miles from my house (roughly). I can't get paid until those forms are in and they have a canceled check they can stick on file, which is really okay -- I have at least one other story I'm still trying to work on for them and will probably get a few more before the semester starts.

"I've been assigned some sections to teach this fall for the university," I told my editor. "Don't know how many yet, but unless I get like three or four of them, I should be able to continue stringing for the foreseeable future. Obviously, if that changes, I'll let you know ASAP."

He was very understanding, of course -- after all, I am an independent journalist and can write or not write whenever I want with them, as long as my info is in the system for pay (part of why I had to go over there again today, as mentioned above).

There is a full-time position opening in McPherson, a town about 30 miles to the northwest of me (it's where I took my driving test and got my license). The McPherson paper is run by the former news editor of the Newton paper, a woman I worked with and knew pretty well (in a journalism sense) when I was a full reporter and webmaster before grad school. My editor forwarded my information on to her, but she hasn't contacted me yet, and may not. If she does, it's going to break my heart to tell her I can't do the full-time gig there because of my teaching schedule. Not to mention that McPherson would be a hell of a grind to drive there and back every day, but that's beside the point. If this had popped up two weeks ago, I would've jumped on it. The timing just sucks, that's all.

Some of you may be saying why aren't you jumping on it now, and telling the university that you can no longer teach for them in the fall? Because of a few simple factors, really. One, I haven't been contacted or offered the position. Two, I'd be driving more miles than I drive to campus and back, and it would be every day. Gas would be incredibly expensive and it would put a lot more miles and wear on my car. Three, if I can get three or four sections of classes to teach at the university (a big if, yes, but possible), I'd make more in sixteen weeks than I'd make in eight or nine months in a full-time reporter job. Four, if I were to take a full-time reporter job, there's a good chance that unless I was making enough to fully, truly support myself, I'd be leaving it in less than a year anyway once Daisy and I get married. Five, if I were to take a full-time reporter job I would more than likely not continue teaching again for a long time, if ever. And, finally, six -- the newspaper industry has a high turnaround rate. If this position remains open for a while, or is filled and reopened, there's a good shot I could get it after this semester anyhow, but I would still only take it if it could support me and Daisy well enough to survive on.

And, y'know, it would probably mean I'd have to move to McPherson eventually. Which, really, is a nice town, but if I'm going to move I'd like it to be somewhere more permanent and somewhere that I don't necessarily have to worry too much about job security.

The newspaper industry, especially out here, is a mess. It's basically a good job as long as you can keep it, and as long as your position isn't eliminated due to cutbacks or automation of day-to-day processes. This is why the webmaster position I had at the paper three years ago no longer exists now -- all of the website layout and advertising is now done in-house at the corporate level, not the paper level. If I'd chosen to stay there instead of go to grad school, my position would've been eliminated within a year. So, yes, it's a shaky industry. Higher education, for the most part, is not. Say what you want about academia, but when you teach you're locked in for several months at a time, get a guaranteed paycheck (even if it's not a lot), the work is consistently fulfilling, and you get a fresh batch of students every semester. Academia is a constantly-moving machine, and there will always be a need for English professors to teach composition courses.

For the moment, I made a judgment call that will secure me, possibly, a bit more money and stability for the time being. The time being. Who knows, I may not get any more classes to teach this fall, and will be stuck just with the one -- that's not exactly financially stable, but it's enough wiggle room to pay my bills and keep me looking for other work during the fall, obviously. I can deal with that for the next few months. What I wouldn't be able to deal with would be actively pursuing another position only to have it possibly fall through and leave me with nothing when I could've been teaching and making a good bit of money to pay bills and sock away some for the wedding (or for after the wedding). Make no mistake, if I get three or four classes, I will be working my ass off to teach and grade for all of them, but I'll also be getting a good bit of money over a relatively short time, and I have few expenses and monetary requirements for basic survival. So, yes. Judgment call. A gamble. A slightly worrying gamble, but I do have faith in the department to get me whatever classes they can, so that worrying is only slight. If they can't get me any more, I don't fault them, of course -- it will only further my drive to find more work for the spring, and I'll adjust my budget accordingly.

As mentioned, when I went over to the paper I did present to my editor my invoice for the story -- it did run last Thursday (it didn't appear on the website because they've been having problems with a lot of those web-oriented things). It ran on the front page at the bottom, and continued inside. As a stringer before, when I had a byline it ran my position as "For the [Paper]." Now, they've apparently changed that to "Special to the [Paper]."

So my byline said that I was special to the paper.

I found this hilarious. I don't know why. It was along the lines of "aww, someone thinks I'm special!" or something like that, or "at least the paper thinks I'm special!" I took a photo of it and uploaded it to Facebook, but won't post it here (since it has, y'know, my name and the paper's name on it). Plus, my camera is shitty.

My weekend is wide-open for relaxation; Daisy goes back to work tonight. She got home safely around midnight and went to bed, and this afternoon may be able to reserve our wedding location if the contact gets back to her. I will be cleaning, working on any other stories that my editor may find, and will probably do some laundry and run the dishwasher. I slept really roughly last night for some reason; when the morning rolled around, I didn't want to wake up and my body was all stiff and achy (probably partially because my allergies are still going nutty, and we're supposed to get storms for the next several days again). The only reason I didn't continue sleeping is because I needed to go over to the paper's offices. This means that I'll probably pass out fairly early tonight. Also, NFL preseason starts on Sunday night, to much rejoicing from me -- I'll probably do a big dinner for myself here at the house and sit on the couch to watch the first game. I can't wait. Football is finally back. I don't have anything else to take care of outside the house, really -- I won't need to go grocery shopping for a while, all of my bills are paid except for the water bill (which came yesterday) and my car has a full tank of gas. Let it rain and storm all it wants, because my yard can't be mowed again until it's dry and stays dry, and I don't have any new gas for the mower yet anyway. With Daisy at work for the next four nights, all I'll be doing is sleeping and relaxing as much as I can, especially since once I start teaching I won't get to do that as often, or as much. For once it's not 100 degrees outside, either (it's 81 right now) and it's somewhat comfortable in the house, so I can actually enjoy being upstairs and awake, and won't sweat through my clothes when I try to do housework.

Affirmations

The past two days have been very long, but very nice. Here's what's been going on.

Daisy got into town on Tuesday evening -- relatively early, at that. Like, before dark. I was impressed. It was only after she'd been here for an hour or two when I learned that she hadn't slept. At all.

"You mean to tell me that you got up last night, went to work, worked all night, came home, did stuff around the house, went shopping, hung out with mama, and then got in the car and drove down here without sleeping a wink?"

"Yes," she said.

"Honey, that's dangerous," I told her. "I thought you said you were going to nap for a while?"

"Well, I was, but..."

Oy. I made her some food because she hadn't eaten, either, and then made sure she went to bed. By the time she went to sleep, she'd been awake for something like 28 or 29 hours straight -- she was fighting off being tired and needing sleep because she wanted to spend time with me, and wanted to be awake as long as she could because she'd just gotten here. I did, of course, make sure we spent time together, ate together, talked about her job, etc. But I also made sure she went to sleep and stayed asleep, because she needed it. Badly.

I, on the other hand, stayed up until 3AM finishing up watching the rest of the first season of Orange is the New Black. This was probably a bad idea, as we'd planned to go to campus in the morning so I could pick up my diploma and meet up with the folks in the department.

When I finally awoke, it was after 10AM. Daisy was just waking up as well, at least waking up fully, anyhow, and I got dressed and ready to leave the house when I heard a really strange noise fairly close to the house -- like a droning, a buzzing of an engine. I looked out the window to see city street crews had drawn chalk lines on my street and were using leaf blowers to clean out the sealant cracks on the street. This meant that they were going to do the "slurry seal" operation.

What is slurry seal, you might ask? Well, I thought it was the black tar-like sealant they you see applied to cracks and edges of roads and streets to keep the road in one piece -- like, patch-job stuff. I'd seen them doing this around town, putting down the tar on corners and on segments of roadways, and knew they were supposed to do it to my street eventually as well. Okay, I thought. This isn't a big deal. It'll take a few extra hours before it dries, and then we can go to campus.

It was then I noticed that the street had been entirely closed off. As in, shut down, nobody allowed on it or off it. There were barriers set up at each end of the street (including one completely blocking off my neighbor's driveway, which I'm sure he wasn't exactly happy about). I got on the city of Newton's website to see what their schedule entailed and how they'd go about doing the sealant operation (read: how long I'd be stuck in the house).

It wasn't good news.

Apparently when they do this, they shut down entire streets from 7:30 AM to 5PM. And when I say "shut down," I mean shut down. Like I mentioned before, they block everything off, they close down the street -- nobody gets in or out. As the street was blocked, I wasn't going anywhere. I sent the department people at school an email telling them that I wouldn't be able to make it down, but I'd make it down there today, and went downstairs to tell Daisy -- who had laid back down for a bit after breakfast and a shower.

"You may as well relax, love," I said. "We're not going anywhere today. Street's going to be closed off until 5PM while they do this stuff. Nobody gets in or out. That's why the barriers are up."

And that's what we did. We relaxed.

Somewhat.

Let me tell you, it's somewhat maddening to have somewhere you need to go and/or be at a certain time and cannot actually fulfill that obligation, physically or otherwise. Add to this that of all of the days I've been here this summer, of all of the days I have never ventured outside the door of my home, they chose the one and only day where I had something important to do.

Chalk that up to bad luck, I suppose.

I also found it supremely interesting that they're supposed to place a notice on your door 48 hours prior to the time when they're going to close off your street. I never got any sort of notice. I go in and out my doors several times a day -- I'd been out there just the afternoon before to get the mail and to take out the cats' dirty litter, and had nothing there. This will come into play later, I assure you, so stay tuned.

So, really, we were stuck at home. While I was downstairs with Daisy, we heard loud machinery and grating noises, and I looked out the window to see a crew of about ten guys with a very large steamroller-like machine. They weren't simply putting down a bit of that sticky black tar on the road where new seals were needed, oh no -- they were completely re-paving my street. 

"Holy hell," I said to Daisy. "They're re-paving the entire street. I have no idea why."

My street is in relatively good shape. There aren't any potholes, there aren't any cracks or broken parts, etc. It's not been paved since I've been living here (probably not since long before, actually) but, really, there's nothing wrong with it. And they re-paved it. All of it. They also re-paved several other streets around my neighborhood as well.

Mind you, these are residential streets. Far-off-the-path residential streets as well, not heavily-traveled main thoroughfares. Some of those, obviously, do need paving. But okay, whatever, so they want to pave my street. I don't own my house, I rent it. The landlord, who also owns all of the other houses on this street except for two, pays all of those taxes, and as he was the city commissioner for a long time, including when I began living here, well, it's not like I have anything to worry about in that department. So, really, it's not like my city/county/property tax dollars are paying for the streets to be paved. I just found it interesting more than anything else.

Daisy and I played cards, cooked lunch, watched TV, and generally killed time. I felt like I was trapped. Not with her, mind you, but trapped in the house in general. Finally, I wanted to be able to get out and sort of celebrate the fact that I would soon be employed again, would soon be able to worry about money a little less and have a reason to get up in the morning, but, of course, I was stuck there. And so was Daisy -- as long as they were paving the street.

"Want to go see The Wolverine?" I asked Daisy in passing.

"Sure," she said. "But I thought you didn't really want to see it, since you said there were bad reviews and all?"

"Eh." I said. "I do want to see a movie, and it's a comic book movie, and it may be at least mildly interesting if it sticks to the comics it's supposedly based on."

I really had been sort of lukewarm on seeing The Wolverine. I've always been a much bigger Marvel nerd than DC nerd, and I do like Wolverine, but eh. The first Wolverine movie was good for 40 minutes, and then after that it became utter dogshit, but Marvel has put out some good films recently. If nothing else, it would get us out of the house and we could have a date night after being stuck there all day.

So, plans were made. We couldn't make the early showing (4-something) because of the street, but the 7:15 showing was fine. Neither of us had any plans, and since I'd been in a sour mood and really depressed for the past few weeks, I needed something to take my mind off of things and immerse me in a world that wasn't my own. When Daisy and I see movies together, it's not as much about the movie most of the time as it is us going out and doing something together, something fun, something as a couple. Okay, well, for Man of Steel, it was totally about the movie.

Anyway.

Around 4PM I saw cars coming in and out, and the kids were riding their bikes around the street again. This was interesting, I thought, as my end of the street was still barricaded and closed. When I saw people coming and going, though, I knew the street had re-opened, at least to in-and-out traffic. So we got ready and were out of the house by around 6. Our plan was to go to the Dollar Tree first, since I'd been needing to go for a while, and because Daisy always likes to go with me when she's here. Part of that is because she can find a lot of awesome stuff there when she comes with me, because Daisy is all about kitschy cool things, to the point of borderline tacky (example: she seriously considered purchasing a headband with a neon highlighter green flower in it, and planned to wear it in all seriousness, not irony). This always gives me an amusing trip instead of a quick in-and-out, get-what-I-need-and-go Dollar Tree excursion, and thus I love going there with her.

By the time we got out of Dollar Tree (where our cart was filled, and I ended up spending $53 on stuff I needed/wanted for around the house) it was too late to take it home and put it away, so we stuffed it in the trunk and went to the movie.

The Wolverine was fine; it's by no means a perfect film or even a great film, but it's definitely entertaining, thoroughly watchable, and a serviceable film for Wolverine. It's (at times loosely) based on the Miller/Claremont mini-series of the early 80s, and has a lot of nods to the source material there while updating it and changing around a bit of the plot and pacing -- and, as it is, it's a pretty good stand-alone Wolverine picture that ties into the other films as well, if (again) loosely. Worth the money to see it, at least, but don't bother with the 3D treatment, as there are only about three scenes that would be at all interesting to see in 3D. After reading some of the reviews, I thought it would be godawful, and I was pleasantly surprised. It's held up pretty decently on Rotten Tomatoes, as well.

Oh, and stay for the post-credits scene if you see it -- without being spoiler-y, it's a direct lead-in to Days of Future Past.


So. We saw the movie, stopped at Walmart to get some stuff I needed, since we would've done that earlier had the street been open, and came home. By the time we got back home, settled in and had all the groceries put away, it was almost midnight. Daisy went to bed, and I joined her about two hours later (after a shower).


I probably should have gone to bed when she did; I was so tired and by the time I actually went downstairs, I was beginning to get a little dizzy/loopy. I've not been staying up late as of late; I've been in bed between 9 and 11PM most of the time, and have been getting up between 7 and 9AM or so. I can't remember the last time I was up as late as I have been the past few nights. Add to this the effects of my allergies and the fact that I've not been sleeping well and I feel like I'm wandering through a constant thin fog for most of my waking hours if I don't have something to do in order to focus myself.

When we returned home, by the way, I found a door-hanger notice of the street re-pavement operation on my downstairs door. It must have been put there that morning, mere hours (or even minutes) before the work started -- since it had not been there the night before when Daisy came down.

This morning, since we'd been delayed by a day because of the street, we had to go to campus. I awoke in a daze around 10AM and went upstairs; I let Daisy sleep. I saw that she'd been upstairs herself at some point and had come back down; she'd eaten breakfast and had moved some stuff around in the kitchen/bathroom, so I figured I should let her rest if she was tired enough to go back to bed. I didn't wake her until around 11:20, after I'd already gotten dressed for the day and was basically ready to leave the house. Daisy, for as much of a girly-girl as she is, is also really fast to get dressed and made up to go out. She can go from bed to fabulous in about 20 minutes, roughly, if she's in a hurry. I know because I've seen this transition many times over the course of our relationship. Once she got up and got ready, we were out the door by noon and on the road to Wichita.

The drive down there was strange; I haven't driven to campus since graduation day. Now, with all of the new construction both on the interstate AND on campus, everything feels...well, alien to a certain extent. I told Daisy that I felt like an ex-pat returning to his home country after a long absence. As I mentioned here before, my normal parking lot has been destroyed, as a new dorm is being built there now. They've also closed off the main entrance I usually go through, and they've razed one of the soccer fields and paved it to put in new parking spaces. This makes it a massive pain in the ass to get on and off of campus now, and even today -- the last day of summer sessions -- the lot wasn't full, but it was over half full. I can't imagine what proverbial shit will hit the fan when the fall semester actually starts in a few weeks and everyone has to fight for parking spaces everywhere. It's going to be a nightmare, and remember -- I drive a land boat.

Still, campus was (mostly) deserted; there were only four people in the entire department, and I gave my greetings and salutations to all of them, obviously.

Here's what's going on with my teaching and the fall -- at least what I know now, anyway:

1. I have one class right now -- Tuesday/Thursday, 9:15AM, West campus, room unknown at present. This is not yet officially scheduled in Banner, but it's mine. The office administrator is working to get me up to three more, if possible, and I told her I would gladly take whatever I could teach. She took my old office key, gave me the new books I needed (the updated versions of the 101 books, of which I don't have copies), and told me optimistically that she'd be in touch over the next few days with what popped up.

2. No word on the continuation of the Engineering English program when I talked to the chair, but it didn't come up in conversation, either. I'm guessing that as I'm not scheduled to teach any of those classes, it's officially on hold indefinitely right now, but I don't know for sure.

3. If I do get other classes to teach (which seems likely, given my reputation in the department, ability to teach, and willingness to help), they won't conflict with the class I teach on West campus and I'll have enough time after that class to get across town to the main campus beforehand.

4. I may receive (enthusiastically receive, mind you) one or more night classes to helm. Night classes are easy to teach and are fun, and generally have much lower enrollment (which means less work to grade).

5. Right now I don't have an office anymore -- I turned in my key today, as I said -- but there is apparently office space on West campus if I need it, and I also don't necessarily have to keep strictly-regimented office hours since I'm no longer a GTA, but actual faculty. This basically means that, if I wanted to, I could say "office hours are via email. use it." or something to that effect. That may not gain me a whole lot of popularity with the students, but I can't exactly hold office hours if I don't have an office. My old office is now property of the new GTAs they'll stick in there.


These are all the updates I have. I thanked them profusely, as I wanted them to know how grateful I am to even be able to teach one class this fall, even if I don't get any others. You folks here know how stressed and depressed I've been over the past few weeks, of course. Getting some affirmation that I am useful and helpful in some regard when it comes to my talents does ease those feelings a bit. In turn, they thanked me as well -- they didn't have anyone who could teach the West campus class and were really glad I could take it. Again, I love the West campus -- it's shiny and new with a massive parking lot, is a complex that is all one floor, and is out in the middle of nowhere, so the drives there will be peaceful. I do, however, eagerly await further communications to see what else I can get. Teaching one class will cover my rent (with maybe a little extra) for the four months of the semester, but every other expense will still come out of my savings. Obviously, if I get even one more class, I double my pay for those sixteen weeks and life will become a little easier. Two more, triple the pay, and so on. Adjuncts are paid by the class. I told the chair that I could helm as many as necessary, because it's not like I have my own papers to write or stacks of books to study for comps now -- it's just me, teachin' and makin' money.  Not a lot of money, but more than I have now, which is the main thing.

On our way off campus, Daisy and I stopped to get my diploma from the registrar's office. It's pretty, actually. My WVU diploma is massive, and still resides in the envelope in which it came, tucked away in a safe place in the top of my closet. This one is smaller and is in a leather binder under a sheet of protective plastic, and it's formal and elegant. It's also still sitting in my bag across the room from me, as I have no idea what to do with the piece of paper I call my "debt certificate." But, I suppose (if that whole, expensive-gown-wearing graduation ceremony wasn't any indication) that with the diploma in my hands and an adjunct professorship lined up for me, well, I guess I really do have a Master's degree now.

Daisy left this evening to go back to Omaha -- she was debating on staying until the morning, but if she had done so, she would've had to get up really early to be able to get everything packed up, put in the car, and to make the drive to Omaha before needing to immediately crash and sleep the rest of the day away before her work tomorrow night, something that probably wouldn't be the best idea in the world since she's spent the past two days running around with me, even if I do try to force her to get sleep when she desperately needs to.

All in all, I'm in a much better place than I was a few days ago. Getting offered that class -- even if, for the moment, it's just one class -- eased a lot of my fears. Spending the past two days with Daisy and being able to relax with her, go to movies and go shopping with her (enabling me to get almost all of my important groceries and other needed goods in the process) helped quite a bit as well. Not having anything pressing, soul-sucking, or must-be-done-now-important things to do this weekend helps even more -- it'll allow me to try to relax a bit and rest, to sleep without fear or depression upon waking up, and on a practical level I can clean the house and do laundry. I'm more centered, so to speak. I still have problems, of course, and some of those problems are fairly large, looming ones, but for now, I have a bit of much-needed perspective.

There is one other thing, however, though it's small. I got an email today from my editor at the paper. My story ran last week on schedule, but it apparently never got put on the website (which is why I could never find it). I have to drop by the offices tomorrow morning to fill out the payroll forms in order to get paid for it, which will put me back into the system and will allow me to get semi-regular checks from them when and if my stories run. I can do this easily, and as an adjunct I don't have to worry about running afoul of the administration on any sort of GTA work contract I might violate by having a second job -- this means that as long as I have time to do so, I can continue to write for the paper with no issue. The problem is having that time. Some stories take a while to develop (one of my contacts for my second story I have, I haven't heard any more correspondence from for over a week, and I need to check back in with him, for example). If I'm teaching three or four classes, I totally won't have time to write for the paper anymore. If I'm teaching two? With no other student work of my own to deal with? I could feasibly continue with them with no problems. This is something I'll have to tell my editor tomorrow when I go over there, regardless of when that may be -- it depends heavily on when I wake up and roll out of bed, though I would like it to be early.